“Before the Nazi regime, Jews were instrumental in shaping the traditions and character of Germany’s third largest city, from Löwenbräu beer to the top purveyor of Lederhosen and Dirndl to the city’s champion soccer club. Like Jews across Germany, they considered themselves as much Germans as Jews, but they could add a third identity to their hyphenated existence – Bavarian. Today, seventy years after the end of World War II, Munich is again home to a flourishing community of 11,000 members, the second largest in Germany.”

“Since moving to New York in 2003, the exploration of Jewish identity has become a leitmotif in the work of photographer Julian Voloj. Growing up in Muenster, Germany, in a small Jewish community, he became interested in Jewish diaspora culture around the world.

Fascinated by the vibrancy and diversity of New York’s Jewish communities, he started to explore what it means to be Jewish. His photographs are an intimate portrait of a variety of Jewish communities, former Jewish neighborhoods, and expressions of identity.

From Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and their struggle between tradition and modernity, to African-Americans who adopted Jewish rituals to cope with the legacy of slavery, his photographs open the doors to unknown worlds.

Julian Voloj’s award-winning photography has appeared in various newspapers and magazines including the Washington Post, Forward, Tablet Magazine, Publishers Weekly, and the Jerusalem Post. Voloj is also the founder of JWalks: Retracing Jewish Heritage, a nonprofit promoting Jewish history through walking tours. Julian Voloj lives with his wife and two children in New York City.”

“Over their centuries-long relationship with New York City, Jews have carved out a multitude of public and private spaces as their own, including neighborhood streets, businesses, synagogues and tenement apartments, as well as the temporarily-Jewish stadiums, squares and concert halls that served as venues for special events. Discover the various identities of New York Jews (from the years 1700 – 2012) by exploring the spaces that they have created for themselves. Learn how Jews have shaped New York, how the largest city in the U.S. has molded the Jews and what Jewish spaces in the city reveal about the many varieties of “New York Jews” who have lived here.”

The Museum is asking for your help to identify displaced children and document what became of these young Holocaust survivors after the war.

“They are the most vulnerable victims of war and genocide. Between 1933 and 1945, millions of children were displaced as a result of persecution by the Nazis and their collaborators. After World War II, relief agencies photographed some of the children who survived to help find their families. Now, more than 65 years later, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is working to discover what became of these young survivors.”

On the museum’s website, you can browse the names of the children or view their pictures. Please contact the museum at RememberMe@ushmm.org or click on “I remember this child!” button near his/her individual photo if you recognize a child or see yourself in the pictures. The images for this project have been provided by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives and The Museum of Jewish Heritage, A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.

The photo above shows Berthe Moscowicz, who now goes by the name Bracha Aris and lives in Israel. She came across her own picture in the photo gallery and identified herself.

A new Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Voice From Germany, will be launched in Germany beginning next year. The English-language quarterly will be published in Berlin starting in January 2012 by novelist and political commentator Rafael Seligmann with an initial circulation of 25,000.

In his welcoming message, Seligmann writes: “There is a revival of Jewish life in Germany. But […] little is known about the fertile German-Jewish relations.”

“Germany is politically and economically one of Israel’s most reliable and important partners. A communication-bridge is missing between German-speaking countries and the influential Jewish communities in the U.S., Canada, GB and Israel. Jewish Voice From Germany will forge this missing link. [It] supplies information and provides commentaries for disseminators in economics, politics, sciences and arts. Our paper will help revive German-Jewish relations and voice mutual interests.”

Here is a query from a reader. Please reply to her directly or comment to this post.

My name is Charla R. Malamed. I am a doctoral student at Derner Institute, at Adelphi University on Long Island, New York.

I am currently conducting a research project, in which I am interested in learning about the transmission of Holocaust WWII experience across the generations, and about how that experience influences the individual’s relationships with the self and with others, specifically with a German/Jewish individual (German non-Jewish, if the individual is Jewish; Jewish, if the individual is German non-Jewish).

I want to understand how cultural and familial memory of the Holocaust influences the development of the self and the ways in which an individual is able to relate to the ‘other;’ that is, how has the Holocaust affected Jewish/German non-Jewish relations today, in the 3rd generation?

To be eligible to participate, you must:

(1) Be a grandchild of a someone who lived during the Nazi regime in one of the Nazi-occupied territories

(2) have had, or currently have, a meaningful and ongoing relationship with a German non-Jewish individual (if you are Jewish) or a Jewish individual (if you are German and non-Jewish).

Anyone who is interested will be asked to participate in a 75-90 minute interview, as well as complete a pencil-and-paper questionnaire. All the information resulting from this research will be anonymous.